Eurostat: About 4% of Working Bulgarians were Engaged in Temporary Employment

Bulgaria is among the five EU countries with the lowest proportion of temporary employment, according to Eurostat's analysis of European Union labor market trends in the past year.

Our country has a share of only 4% of temporary workers aged 15-64 in 2018, with an average EU figure of 14%. Thus, according to the native statistics, there were about 130,000 temporary workers in Bulgaria last year, with a total of 3.2 million people who were economically active for the given period. The highest share of temporary workers is registered in the 25-55 age group - nearly 100,000 people.

Another factor that determines temporary employment is the level of education - the highest number of people with primary or lower education - 80,000, with an average of about 40,000 and a higher - about 10,000.

A large part of the temporary staff were without special qualifications, with a focus on the work profession, as well as with the seasonality factor.

The "seasonality" factor remains one of the determinants of the labor market, with a significant number of temporary workers employed, mostly in the hospitality, restaurant, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and other sectors. For example, in 2016, seasonally hired were about 24,000 people, about 20,000 in 2017, and about 20,000 in 2018.

According to experts, the market for poorly qualified staff is considerably narrowed while there is a tendency for search for highly qualified specialists - technical and engineering staff, doctors, nurses, and professions that require high competency.

Thus, for example, the persons with higher education in the country were just over 1 million, while with secondary education, they were about 1.8 million people, and with basic or lower education -...